According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual Gender Gap Report 2022, India came in at 135th place in terms of gender parity. However, it has also improved five spots from last year’s ranking in the categories of economic opportunity and engagement. Additionally, it has performed well in some facets of the educational professions.
Iceland took first place out of 146 countries in the ranking, followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden. Only 11 nations, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Iran, and Chad, were placed lower than India.
According to the analysis produced by WEF, the growing gender disparity in the labor force is anticipated to hit women the hardest during the current cost of living crisis. To close the gender gap, another 132 years will pass (as opposed to 136 in 2021).
The research added that Covid-19 had pushed gender parity back a generation and that a sluggish global recovery was making it worse.
India’s Overall Performance: According to the WEF study, India has improved its gender gap score for the seventh time in the previous 16 years, despite being among the poorest performers in the world.
India’s level of accomplishment “weighs heavily on regional rankings with a female population of around 662 million,” the research stated.
India has made the most notable and favorable progress in its performance on Economic Participation and Opportunity since 2021. But since 2021, the proportion of men and women in the labour force has decreased.
- The percentage of female legislators, senior officials, and managers rose from 14.6% to 17.6%, and the percentage of female professionals and technical workers went from 29.2% to 32.9%.
- While values for both men and women decreased, they did so more for males, resulting in an improvement in the gender parity score for projected earned income.
- However, the subindex where India ranks significantly higher at 48th place showed a deteriorating score in the area of political empowerment due to the decreasing proportion of years that women have held the position of head of state for the past 50 years.
- India was one of the five nations with gender inequalities greater than 5% and came in at 146th on the health and survival subindex, behind Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and China.
- India, however, came in at number one globally for gender parity in both tertiary and primary school enrollment, as well as at number eight for the head of state positions.
- India was placed sixth overall in South Asia, behind Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. India received lower grades than Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
The highest gender disparity was found in South Asia
(62.3%), where there has been minimal improvement in the majority of the countries since 2021 and low scores across all evaluated gender gaps. The gender disparity in the area won’t be closed in 197 years if things continue as they are. With advances in the proportion of women in professional and technical occupations in nations like Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, the economic gender gap has shrunk by 1.8%.
Only one in five of the 146 economies examined by the WEF was able to reduce the gender gap by at least 1% in the previous year, according to the WEF.
“In face of a weak recovery, government and business must make two sets of efforts: targeted policies to support women’s return to the workforce and women’s talent development in the industries of the future. Otherwise, we risk eroding the gains of the last decades permanently and losing out on the future economic returns of diversity,” she added.
At the present rates of development, it will take 155 years to overcome the gender gap in political empowerment, which is 11 years longer than what was anticipated in 2021, and 151 years to close the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity.
Even if 29 nations have achieved full educational equality, it will still take 22 years to close the gender gap in educational achievement. While more than 140 nations have closed at least 95% of their health disparities, the overall reversal (caused by the Covid-19 epidemic) suggests that this progress may not continue.
